My View: Veterans Memorial Circle a tribute to special place, community

Saturday

Nov 30, 2013 at 8:00 PM

A few weeks ago, we stood at the crossroads of the intersection of North Main and Auburn streets to dedicate our newest public improvement: Veterans Memorial Circle. When we embarked on this transformational infrastructure project, we set out three objectives: 1) improve mobility and safety; 2) revitalize the business climate at the intersection; and 3) build an infrastructure project that embodies the civic pride and heritage of this historic area.

To the northeast of Veterans Memorial Circle sits Greenwood Cemetery. Thousands of people drive by this cemetery every day, and they drive by without knowing that many of the souls buried there formed and influenced not just this city, but this country.

When people walk or drive by Greenwood, they probably don’t know that some of our most important founding fathers are buried there. People like Lewis Lemon, who was Rockford’s only documented slave and who died a free man, and people like John Manny, who developed and produced the Northern Illinois Reaper and started Rockford’s Water Power District, who was defended in his famous patent case against John McCormick by a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, and President Lincoln’s future secretary of war, Edwin Stanton.

They probably don’t know that former Ohio Gov. William Bebb is buried there. Bebb was governor of Ohio from 1846 to 1849 and was a strong supporter of racial equality, and served under President Lincoln as an examiner in the pension office at Washington, D.C.

They probably don’t know that social reformer Julia Clifford Lathrop is buried there. A college friend of Hull House founder Jane Addams, Lathrop was a national advocate for women and children and was appointed by President William Howard Taft to head the Children’s Bureau for nine years of her life.

They probably don’t know that major political leaders are buried there, such as U.S. Congressman William Lathrop, or U.S. Congressman John Theodore Buckbee. They don’t know that James Henry Breasted is buried there, the historian and archaeologist who established the study of Egyptology in the United States and helped shape the American image of past civilizations.

They don’t know that Charles Roscoe Barnes is buried there, a professional baseball player who was the National League’s first batting leader with Chicago in 1876, and the first player to hit a home run in National League history. He was considered the league’s finest player.

Most importantly, people don’t realize that 527 soldiers are buried at Greenwood, soldiers who served this country and sacrificed their lives for our nation’s cause of freedom and democracy.

They don’t know that Loyd Wheaton was buried there, who served as a major general in the Union Army in the Civil War and who was awarded the Medal of Honor as a lieutenant colonel in the 8th Illinois Infantry for his heroic actions at Fort Blakely in Alabama on April 9, 1865.

Most people just don’t know that where the Churchill’s Grove neighborhood is now located in the southeast quadrant of these crossroads was home to Camp Fuller, a Civil War training ground in the fall and winter of 1862. People don’t know that Greenwood contains the remains of soldiers lost in every major conflict in U.S. history, including the Revolutionary War.

The men, women and children of this community, and those who visit our community, should know what a special place these crossroads are, and what a special place it is because of the men and women who came before us who transformed our community and our country.

It is in that spirit that we dedicated the crossroads of North Main and Auburn streets as Veterans Memorial Circle — so that when people walk or drive by, they will take notice, they will feel a sense that this much be a special place, and they will remember this place with a sense of pride, and a place of honor.

Jim Ryan is city administrator for Rockford

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.